Datahopa

It appears NASA and ESA are going to collaborate to make a manned moon/asteroid/Mars craft.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21044408 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21044408)

We're almost upto 1968 achivements.

I see what you mean Snowy, after what has been going on the last 20 odd years with the Shuttle's, the best we can come up with is to drop it back in the ocean. Bearing in mind how financialy secure Europe is currently, a few Billion Euro's extra for a more reuseable craft would hardly notice.  ::)

If all goes well over the next few years, there should be a flyby of the moon and return. This was done by NASA in the late 60s I do believe.

QuoteThis demonstration will be unmanned and will see Orion go around the back of the Moon before returning to Earth for an ocean splashdown.

If all goes well, a crew is expected to repeat the feat in about 2021. The venture would echo the famous Apollo 8 mission of 1968.

53 years to do it in more comfort with more electronics.
But, hopefully, this will be the bootstrap tech for longer missions.

It should be said though that a steady approach using previously successful techniques are a good idea, we wouldn't want a repeat of Apollo 1 as something like that could be disasterous for the manned spaceflight programme

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1)

Let's just hope that someone doesn't get a "wild hair", and choose Apollo 13 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112384/) as the in-flight movie! :D :P